


Punch, Kiss, or Hug

by AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Crushes, Eli kind of those and he doesn't like it, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mary is basically the fandom, Mary is looking for answers, Nothing gets past her, Nothing really 'happens' between them sorry to say, Steve doesn't understand his feelings, Teasing, That's literally all this is, This is like a pg version of Fuck Marry Kill, This story is purely for shits and giggles, i warned you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14960589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother/pseuds/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother
Summary: Eli bit back the 'I'll go too!' that was right at the tip of his tongue. It would look suspicious if he went with him, especially since that morning Steve had stood up for him. The rest of the group just nodded or shooed him off. Almost as soon as he left Mary jumped up."I propose that we play a game while he gets back." She suggested.Eli quirked an eyebrow, they had been playing games all day, why wait till now to suggest it? Still, he was curious. "What's the game?" He questioned, semi skeptical."Punch, Kiss, or Hug." She said, a playful tone in her voice. The playfulness did not match with the mischievous look in her eyes. It was the kind of look she got when she felt like there was some good gossip lying around-or waiting to uncovered.(More or less a PG version of Bed, Wed, Behead)





	Punch, Kiss, or Hug

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I made this shit a pg version of Fuck, Marry, Kill because my children are not going to be playing those crude ass games (jk, it was just because I couldn't see them playing the more R version sue me)   
> I've actually had this story completed for like two weeks maybe???? I kept forgetting to upload it plus I'm working on two multichapter stories (more like working on one while completely ignoring the other) Anyway, enough with the excuses, it's up now so yay! I have found that I really enjoy writing one shots and I'll definitely try to get some more out.   
> THIS IS SET RIGHT IN THE RECKLESS CLUB EPISODE!!!!!

  Who knew that detention could be so fun?! Elijah Leslie Pepperjack, the student who had always feared of getting detention was asking himself this. His nerves had been in the edge since Steve and he had gotten detention. It didn't help that his mother had given him an (a least) hour long speech as to how he could do so a thing and how this could affect his future. Thank god that Señor Uhl had eaten that cursed burrito, even if the results were incredibly horrendous to listen to. Mary has not been exaggerating about her description of the sounds, crude as the phrasing had been. Uhl's sensitive stomach had certainly paid off, skating through the halls, stacking up desks in a ludicrous manner, dancing, jousting! It was like a kickass movie from the 1985 featuring students in detention. Although would a movie like that really be any good? Anyway, after all of the running around things had begun to die down and they had settled in the auditorium, sitting atop the stage.

  "I'm going to see if I can get the gym inventory open, I want to shoot a few rounds." Steve announced, getting up from the stage and dusted his pants off. "I'll let you nerds know if I do."

  Eli bit back the 'I'll go too!' that was right at the tip of his tongue. It would look suspicious if he went with him, especially since that morning Steve had stood up for him. The rest of the group just nodded or shooed him off. Almost as soon as he left Mary jumped up.

  "I propose that we play a game while he gets back." She suggested.

  Eli quirked an eyebrow, they had been playing games all day, why wait till now to suggest it? Still, he was curious. "What's the game?" He questioned, semi skeptical.

  "Punch, Kiss, or Hug." She said, a playful tone in her voice. The playfulness did not match with the mischievous look in her eyes. It was the kind of look she got when she felt like there was some good gossip lying around-or waiting to uncovered.

  "Punch, Kiss, or Hug...?" Toby repeated slowly. Please don't say that someone was going to punch him! He had already been framed for a crime that he didn't commit when they said that the other Trollhunters and he had stolen Uhl's car! He would never steal a car! Never!

  "What are the rules?" Shannon inquired, pushing her glasses up.

  "I read about it online, basically you get a group of people at least four people or more and you give them the names of three people, the names _have_ to be people from the group, then from those three names you have to say who'd you rather punch, kiss, or hug." Mary explained.

  "It _sounds_ simply enough." Claire shrugged.

  'It also sounds mortifying?!' Eli mentally added, he would have said so out loud but everyone else seemed to be going along with the game and he didn't want to be a wimp for not wanting to play.

  "Everybody in?" Jim asked, everyone murmured in agreement except for Eli, but he didn't exactly say no either so no one noticed. Jim would play anything, this game, shuffleboard, chess, he didn't really care, it was the ultimate break from being a Trollhunter. Blinky hadn't liked Jim having to spend an entire day out of reach since there was the looming threat of Gunmar; but honestly, what was the worst that could happen from Jim being gone for only eight hours?

  "Great! Now we need a bottle, whoever the top lands on says the names, whoever the bottom points to gets asked." Mary added.

  Shannon got her water bottle and tossed it to Mary who promptly caught it. The others formed a circle and Mary spun the bottle. It went in a blur of colour, spinning and spinning and deciding who it would fuck over before stopping. The top pointed to Jim, the bottom to Claire since they were sitting parallel to each other.

  "Alright umm," he thought for a moment before snapping his fingers. "Me, Toby, Eli. Who would you punch, kiss, or hug?"

  "Is he allowed to make himself one of the names?" Eli interrupted.

  "There's no rule against it so I guess he can." Marry replied. "It just says that the names have to be of people in the group and he's in the group."

  Claire pretended to ponder the options for longer than necessary. "I would kiss you, even if some days the answer is punch, hug Eli, and punch Toby."

  Shannon, Mary, and Jim aw'ed at her answer while Toby immediately began to complain. "Why would you punch me?! Punch Eli, he's used to it!" He whined.

  "It's true." Eli agreed with a shrug. Despite his small frame he could take a hit. Although it wasn't exactly something he liked to brag about.

  "Exactly! He needs a break from that and I wouldn't feel as bad about punching you Toby since we're such good friends." Claire explained. Toby had never felt more honoured to be chosen for a punch.

  "Aw thanks Claire!" Eli thanked. She was so sweet! Even if she had glared daggers into his skull for eavesdropping on them that morning.

  "Next turn!" Mary said, spinning the bottle once more. It spun around and around, trying to pick its next target. The top pointed to Toby, the bottom to Shannon.

  "Mary, Claire and Eli." Toby said automatically. "Which one would you kiss, punch, and hug?"

  "Uh..." She thought for a bit.

  "Wait, the options can be the same gender?" Eli asked, interrupting with a question yet again.

  "Yes Eli, It can be anyone as long as they're in the group." Mary said, exasperated. "Live a little!" She exclaimed. Eli shrunk a bit in embarrassment. Well it wasn't his fault if he hadn't thought of that.

  "Okay, hug Claire, kiss Mary and punch Eli, sorry Eli, I swear that it would just be a tap." She decided, automatically apologizing to him.

  "Seriously? You would choose to kiss Mary?" Jim chuckled.

    Shannon shrugged. "Why not? It would be a way to see if she deserves all the bragging she does of being a good kisser." The group broke out into a chorus of ' Oooohs' while Mary laughed.

    "Don't test me." She chuckled, spinning the water bottle once more. It seemed to take forever to stop but when it did the top pointed to her and the bottom to Eli. She grinned. Finally, what she had been waiting for. Mary was typically written off as just being a gossip or selfie obsessed snob or other things that she knew were whispered in the halls, but…when she wanted to find something out you better believe that she would.

 

    One of the only perks that came from Lawrence dating his mom? It had been easy to snag the school keys and make his own copy. He had been planning on using it for a rainy day for when he wanted to blow off some steam or as a centre of command for the Creepslayerz but he would settle for using the keys to open up the gym for them to goof off during detention. He had just gone alone because he had been hoping that Eli would get the hint so they could scope some things out, like Jim, Toby and Claire's locker. But apparently he hadn't been blunt enough. Whatever, he could handle going through lockers alone. The empty halls totally didn't freak him out. Not in the slightest. After he opened up the gym he had gone outside to said lockers, Jim's first of course, and pried it open easily. Jim’s lock had always been somewhat broken. A bit cluttered but nearly organized. Not for long as Steve rifled through it.

  Homework and notebooks came out of the locker, pencils and pens, a picture of Jim, Claire and Toby and a horseshoe? But nothing that could hint to something being planned. No notes or anything about-what had Eli said that the group has been talking about? Gum-no-Gun-no not that either-whatever they had been talking about that didn't sound good. After all, Jim, the little saint who was against any bullying had let Toby throw a ball of paper at Pepperjack due to him listening in to what they had been talking about. He let out a frustrated groan and shoved the mess back into the locker, slamming it shut.

    He repeated the process with Toby's locker and found the same things except there was also some chocolate bars and snacks. He took one of said chocolate bars from his own and a pack of chips for Eli. It was harder to shove all the junk back into the locker. Technically this was breaking and entering but hey, it was for a higher cause. He was more careful with Claire's locker though since she was more likely to notice a change. He turned up empty there too. He made sure the lockers were secure before he went to his own locker and threw in the snacks he took to pick up later.

    "Well that was a waste of time." Steve so helpfully pointed out to himself. Crap, how long had he been gone? He had to get back to the classroom to tell them that he had gotten the gym open. Hopefully nobody got too suspicious. He half walked half jogged back to the classroom, slowing to tiptoe past the bathroom before speeding up again.

    Steve could hear loud chatter and laughter coming from the slightly opened classroom door and rolled his eyes. So much for being discrete. What was the point of keeping quiet if these nerds were going to alert the whole school of their horsing around.

  "Answer the question, Eli!" He could hear Mary tease. "Who would you punch, who would you hug, and who would you kiss?" Steve quirked and eyebrow. He had heard of the game that she was playing it was pretty dumb in his opinion. Still, he couldn't help but be curious of what the names Eli had been given.

  "Oh come on, Eli, it shouldn't be that hard." Toby laughed. Steve opened the door a sliver more to see what was happening.

  "I still say he doesn't count! You said it could only be people in the group! He's not in the group!" Eli protested feebly.

  "He was, he just stepped out for a moment." Claire so helpfully said. Eli let out a whine, what happened to Claire being one of the good guys?

  "Your options are Jim, Claire, and Steve." Shannon reminded Eli, as if he had forgotten. Steve had to bite back a laugh. Seriously?! Those were Eli's options?!

  To Steve the answer should be obvious enough, punch Jim, Eli had been willing to hit Jim over the head with a mace so a punch was a lot better in comparison. Hug Steve-in a totally platonic way with no people around. And kiss Claire. Easy enough. Or maybe Eli would choose to punch him. Steve wouldn't blame him if he did, it would only be fair given the amount of times that he had slammed Eli into a locker. So many times that Eli had gone into a locker by his own accord when he had gone to ask him about monsters that day, Steve recalled with a wince. Okay yeah, so Eli should choose to punch him, hug Jim, and kiss Claire. Simple enough.

    It wasn’t as if deep in Steve’s mind he knew what he wanted Eli to choose him as. Here’s a hint: it wasn’t the hug or punch option. But it was only because hearing him say that would be funny! It wasn’t because he had been feeling kind of funny since Eli had danced around like a dork in his room when they had first formed the Creepslayersz! It wasn’t because of how Eli holding onto him so tightly when he had driven them back home on the Vespa had increased that funny feeling. It wasn’t because Eli looked incredibly cute with how he was blushing at the moment. No, it was just because hearing him say it would be…funny

  "Come on, Eli, don't be a wimp." Toby goaded. Even Jim and Claire were interested in hearing his answer at this point.

  "I'm not a wimp!" Eli argued. Since he became a Creepslayer he did not take kindly to being called a wimp. Would a wimp fight Creepers? Would a wimp be able to protect Arcadia?! No! "I would punch Jim-in self-defence of course-sorry Jim but you're the only one I can punch that I know would be too good a guy to hit back."

    Steve rolled his eyes, so Pepperjack still put Jim on that good guy pedestal huh? He wondered if Eli still had Jim categorized as "the only one" who's nice to him.

    Eli fell quiet. "So you would punch Jim, who would you kiss and who would you hug?" Mary pressed.

    "Ah...Uh...I would-I mean." He stammered out, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, the slight flush on his face deepening. Could there _please_ be a Creeper attack? Right now, please.

  "You're not allowed to lie, Eli." Claire said. She was still trying to not laugh at the face Jim had made when Eli had said that he would punch him, in self-defence but still. If there had ever been a face for 'Try me' that would have been it.

  "I would-uh," Eli swallowed, throat suddenly dry as he shifted in his seat, visibly flustered. He took a deep breath. "I would hug Claire." He said finally, leaving the answer to the kiss question out there.

  There was a moment of silence and Steve was pretty sure that he was deaf because no way had he heard that right. Maybe all of Lawrence's bonding talk had finally rendered his ears useless. But the full face blush that Eli was now wearing told Steve that he had heard correctly. How hot his own face felt told him that he had _definitely_ heard correctly. So between kissing either Jim, Claire, or him, Eli would rather kiss- _kiss_ him?! He had to imagining this. Wait, why would he ever imagine this happening? Why would he _ever_ imagine that happe-no-Brain don’t you dare-stop-no-fuck he had just imagined it!

  "No. Way." Mary was the first one to speak, a huge grin on her face. So her intuition had been correct after all.

  "Steve?! You would-Steve?!" Jim exclaimed, both shocked and completely grossed out at the idea of Eli kissing Steve, not because it was Eli, he was just grossed out by the idea of anybody kissing Steve in general.

  Toby was in his side laughing hysterically. Shannon just nodded, not really surprised by the answer at all. But she did ask "Why would you kiss Steve and not Jim or Claire?"

  Once again the whole room fell silent, no one had thought to ask that. Eli fiddled with his hands. "W-well," his voice cracked horribly, he cleared his throat and tried again. "Well, everyone knows that J-Jim and Claire are a thing s-so it wouldn't be very nice of me to kiss either of them."

  Steve didn't know why that explanation disappointed him as much as it did, he would have expected something like 'because he's pretty cool' or 'he's probably a good kisser' or-Steve shook his head. What was he thinking?! They were teammates damnit!

    "Or it could be a thank you for how he protected you from a paper ball this morning." Mary giggled.

  If possible, Eli turned a darker shade of red. "N-no! Like I said, I wouldn't want to kiss someone that I know is with someone else."

  "Okay guys, give Eli a break. Speaking of Steve, he's been gone for a while, let's go check if he got the gym open." Jim said, taking pity on Eli.

    There was a chorus of agreements, Eli agreeing the quickest, and the group stood up from the stage. Steve hid around the corner. Luckily the group went the opposite direction. Shannon held Eli back, speaking lowly. "Sorry about Mary, once she gets curious about something she'll pursue it like crazy, not always in the best ways."

  "What-no-it's fine." Eli said quickly. "What uh what would she be curious about?"

  Shannon shot him a deadpan look. "Honestly? At the chemistry between you and Steve."

  Steve could hear Eli choke on his spit. "She's got it wrong." Eli denied quickly. "He just caught that ball out of reflexes, nothing else." He was of course thinking about their cover as Creepslayerz…yeah, that’s the only thing he worried about Mary snooping around. Nothing else.

  Shannon sighed. It wasn't about the paper ball, even the blind would be able to sense how Eli looked at Steve and vice versa. She knew that Mary was a horrible gossip, and one of her favourite topics to talk about was who liked who and who was with who and that Mary was definitely looking for a scoop about Steve and Eli. But if Eli wouldn't even admit it to himself… "Just remember that I chose Mary as my kiss option okay? In case you find something that you have to talk about."

  Eli understood her loud and clear and turned pink once more. "Alright, maybe another time. For now let's go to the gym with the others."

    Steve on the other hand had no clue what Shannon had meant by that, but he did know one thing, he had to book it if he wanted to reach the gym before the others.

 

    Detention was finally over and Steve _had_ to tell Eli about that gigantic Creeper that he had seen Jim fight. And after that, Steve had some things to work through, some things to check out. He wondered if Wikipedia had search results for 'How to know if your teammate likes you' and 'I think I may like the kid I used to bully'. And he might as well look up 'How to kill Creepers' one more time while he was at it. Eli and he had gotten detention to try and find things out about Jim, Claire, and Toby but Steve hadn't expected to find out things about Eli-or about himself. He wasn't sure what any of it meant yet. Why his stomach had flipped when Eli had admitted that he would kiss him. Why he found Eli's face so cute. Why he had felt like his stomach was full of butterflies all afternoon. But even if Steve didn't have the answers to those things quite yet, it didn't stop him from putting an arm around Eli's shoulder like he had grown accustomed to. 

    He thought back to Mary teasing at him, asking if he was jealous that he was one of the only boys she hadn’t kissed. Eli looked up at him with a bright smile as they walked away from Uhl’s wrath and he returned the smile. Nah, he wasn’t jealous about that, what did it matter if Mary didn’t want to kiss him? He knew someone else who did.

    Mary on the other hand, while getting some answers, her amount of questions had easily doubled. While most of the members of their little reckless club were looking for answers about the supernatural, she was only looking for answers to what would become of Steve and Eli in the future. Especially since she had spotted him in the doorway when they had been playing the game; it was what had led her to continue to pry into Eli's answer. And she had _not_ missed Steve’s reaction.

  So while Mary's questions were simpler compared to the ones of the Trollhunters and Creepslayerz, you better believe that she was going to find some answers.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, Mary is literally the fandom. XD I was cackling as I wrote out her parts.   
> I just adore the Reckless Club episode and after the whole season 3 thing I definitely needed to write about the past. My top three favourite Trolhunter episodes would be The Creepslayerz, The Reckless Club and Bad Coffee. (Yeah we got two fun ones and that jacked up episode I know, But for some reason I really like the Bad Coffee episode. Fucking fight me)  
> Please leave a kudos and feel free to comment and let me now what you think! (


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